Buddha, Freud and the Occupy movement.

Continuing on today with the theme of connecting our inner process and presence with social activism, as its something that I feel really drawn to and fascinated by at the moment. The following is a quote from an interview with Shoken Michael Stone, (whose background includes psychoanalysis, Buddhism, Vipassana, and who has been involved in the Occupy movement) by Dr Dave of Shrink Rap Radio, discussing the Occupy Movement from the perspective of Buddhism and Psychology.

Towards the end of the interview Stone says:

“I think that those of us who have really done inner work, who are able to sit in the tension of opposites, who are really able to be in that space that where we are not clinging to fixed perspectives, where we are doing what Freud calls “evenly hovering attention” and what the Buddha called “mindfulness”, or Zen teachers call ‘not Knowing”, I think we really have to bring not knowing and bearing witness to this movement; to really open our hearts to how it’s possible to meet violence with creativity, to meet violence with love. And this movement is not afraid to use the words love and kindness and non-violence in every sentence. And that’s really really beautiful.

I think that what we are seeing is the beginning of not being able to separate ecological issues, economic issues, social issues, psychological issues, and spiritual issues. This is a spiritual movement as much as it’s a movement towards economic and ecological justice”

"Counsellors need to be in touch with their spirituality, the inarticulateness of knowing, meeting, remembering, sharing, journeying together. The way into these experiences is often unexpected and found in areas in which we are less competent and more vulnerable, using less-dominant traits, less-used senses, in metaphor, through nature, in the shared but incomplete intimacy of the privilege of the counselling or supervision room"